Los Angeles history

Lies and consequences

Perhaps other folks were shocked by the revelation that "Love and Consequences" by Margaret B. Jones, a.k.a. Margaret Seltzer, was a complete fake. It was old news to me.

Here's my own experience, from Donald H. Wolfe's 2005 "The Black Dahlia Files," published by ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins.

As a published author, Wolfe was granted access to the Los Angeles County district attorney's files on the 1947 Black Dahlia case. To bolster his absurd contention that Elizabeth Short was killed by Bugsy Siegel, Wolfe produced what appeared to be an official document.

Let me show you how he faked it.

First we take this authentic memo:

Then we snip off the top:

Then we get another memo:

And we snip a piece of out that:

And get another piece from the next page:

The finished product looks like this and appears on Page 198 of "The Black Dahlia Files":

I originally pointed this out two years ago. Was the book recalled? Ha! Did anyone involved with the book apologize? You can't be serious! Did Wolfe respond to a request for a comment? Of course not! This is how the book publishing industry works, folks. You should be outraged, you should be sad but you should not be surprised. This will surely happen again until the industry's attitude changes. It is really no more complicated than that.